


gambits

by spookykingdomstarlight



Category: Original Work
Genre: Assassination Attempt(s), Cunnilingus, Enemy Lovers, F/F, Orgasm Delay, Space Opera, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-08-19 07:07:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20205715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookykingdomstarlight/pseuds/spookykingdomstarlight
Summary: She got to one knee before the Empress, pressed her hand to her chest, and bowed her head. The Empress’s delicate ankles were hidden away beneath the voluminous and multitudinous hems of her skirt and the underskirts beneath, but she knew them well enough to see them within her mind. It was the only thing that reminded Evelon that she was human, too, or else Evelon might have gone for her throat immediately, doing what she must to destroy the monster before her.





	gambits

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Alexandria (heartfullofelves)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartfullofelves/gifts).

The throne room gleamed under the lights that ran along the floor and ceiling. Unobtrusive, they perfectly illuminated the entirety of the cavernous, glittering chamber, left no shadows in even the furthest corner. The Empress said this was the only stretch of space in the entire galaxy where no secrets could be kept from her thanks to that radiance, but she was mistaken and the general of Her Most Holy Empress’s forces was here to strike the killing blow against that long-held wisdom. She took no great pleasure in it, the same way she took no great pleasure in any of the acts she’d performed at the Empress’s behest, a fair enough trade to be free of this hell.

She didn’t join the military for the peace of mind. Nobody who cared joined the military for that reason.

That was, Evelon thought, the problem. One among many. After so many years, there was little left in Evelon that _cared_ for the Empress or the Empress’s goals.

Even now, the Empress balanced herself on the silver, agéd cathedra she stole from Evelon’s home planet with hardly a concern in the galaxy to trouble her. It once belonged to their most revered prelate, almost royalty herself in her time, and had been here as long as Evelon had. Evelon knew it intimately, mourned the careless nicks and scratches the Empress left upon its surface. Sometimes she dug her lacquered nails into the wood panels along the arms that were rarer than the precious metals that wrapped and wound and curved around the rest of it, a protective measure, though not enough of one when someone like the Empress was determined to gouge ragged lines into whatever stretch of it she touched.

Evelon realized at some point that her people were perhaps more sentimental than smart—otherwise, why not more perfectly preserve those priceless panels—and that was why she remained here, when all she wanted was to go home. Unfortunately, that would take her from the Empress’s side, the one thing she couldn’t afford to do.

Sentiment of a different sort might kill her today, but intelligence may free her people if she is very careful.

It will be a worthwhile trade.

“Ah, Evelon,” the Empress said, beckoning her forward. Her teeth gleamed from between her red-tinged lips, bright and lightly glossed. Streaks of pale, sparkling make-up crawled across the arcs and planes of her face. Her hair was pulled into countless, looping curls, surrounded by a tasteful crown of platinum. Bells and jewels dangled across her forehead from them, matched to her gown, silk the opalescent gray of sea foam. “You have done well for me yet again. The reports from Ithalit are promising.”

Evelon would be forgiven for disagreeing with the Empress, though she could only do so within the confines of her mind. Those reports spoke of massacre, death for the sake of political and social expediency: the Empress wanted Ithalit’s resources and she didn’t care how she got them. It was Evelon’s job to see the Empress’s will done. If she survived this day, she would remember the sacrifice made of Ithalit to allow her this moment.

She got to one knee before the Empress, pressed her hand to her chest, and bowed her head. The Empress’s delicate ankles were hidden away beneath the voluminous and multitudinous hems of her skirt and the underskirts beneath, but she knew them well enough to see them within her mind. It was the only thing that reminded Evelon that she was human, too, or else Evelon might have gone for her throat immediately, doing what she must to destroy the monster before her.

She might have loved the Empress once, back when the only thing that got her through the day was belief, belief in the galaxy the Empress wished to create, because to believe otherwise was to believe herself equally evil and she’d been too young and fragile to allow herself that.

No longer.

“Rise,” the Empress said, reaching for her. “I should like to reward your loyalty and bravery.”

Ah. That would explain why there was no one else here. Perhaps she should have known. She definitely shouldn’t have felt the push-pull-tug of desire deep in her chest. They didn’t do this often, not when Evelon was pulled in so many directions, acting as the Empress’s sword in a galaxy that the Empress would shape into her own brutal image.

The Empress reached for her sash, the green of deep, dark forests, knotted around Evelon’s waist, conveniently parting Evelon from the ceremonial blade that could as easily kill someone as any of the higher tech toys the Empress provided to her. It clattered heavily to the floor, forgotten as the Empress tugged Evelon forward by her utility belt.

Another few options gone as it fell to the floor, too: a grenade, a knife, a repurposed electrified prod.

She sucked on the inside of her mouth and waited impatiently as the Empress slipped her hands into Evelon’s trousers, pushed them down her legs and only then urged Evelon to remove her boots. The Empress could be short-sighted in the strangest of ways. But Evelon did as directed, removing them and then her trousers, her underwear. Her skin pebbled in the vast coolness of the room, but that couldn’t distract her from the heat pooling between her legs. Avarice flared in the Empress’s eyes as she considered Evelon from head to foot.

It was flattering, Evelon couldn’t deny that; she had her weaknesses and vanities, too.

“Up here,” she decided, trading places with Evelon, pushing her onto the cathedra bare-assed and committing sacrilege. Though Evelon didn’t flinch, it was a near thing, and she wondered if the Empress knew exactly what she was doing by putting her there. When the Empress fell to her knees, rumpling her dress on the steps, and pushed her legs apart, Evelon was viciously glad for the distraction. She did not love the Empress, though she sometimes wondered about the Empress’s feelings for her, but she could not deny the attraction she felt toward her.

It would be easier if she could. She might hate herself less.

Her blood pulsed in her temples and heat flooded the rest of her. Body thrumming, she bit her lip and rested her head against the high, hard back of the chair, and offered a prayer to the gods that they might not seek offense for this.

The Empress kissed a waxy, red-tinged trail up the inside of her knee. Though she knew it was just make-up, Evelon couldn’t help but feel like the Empress would tear through her skin if she could, make the simulacrum of blood real. She would chew through to the very heart of Evelon if she thought it would do any good. “I’ve missed you,” the Empress said, and there it was, her attempt to take the core out of Evelon and replace it with loyalty to her alone. Her warm breath gusted across Evelon’s thigh. “You stay away too long when you’re on these campaigns.”

Her teeth skimmed an ancient scar, the mark of a clever knife from an old-enemy-lover of Evelon. It set Evelon’s body to shaking and though she didn’t want to touch the thing any more than she already was, she couldn’t help but wrap her hands around the armrests of the cathedra. Otherwise she would simply wrap her hands in the Empress’s hair, something neither of them could abide. The Empress, because she hated having her hair touched, and Evelon, because she was afraid that the Empress would realize the truth if she tried it, like somehow the Empress would know through touch alone what lives in Evelon’s heart.

She cannot be sorry for it, but she might wish it could be another way. In a different life, maybe it would be.

The Empress looked up at her through coy lowered lashes and spread Evelon’s legs further apart. “Perhaps you wish to remain apart from me so that the reunion may be all the sweeter.”

Evelon felt pinned, exposed and unprepared for the sharpness of the Empress’s nails or the tongue that could no longer refrain from tasting her. The first touch of the Empress’s mouth on her was always the most surreal, the hardest to breathe through. Her mind focused so deeply on that moment that she seemed to experience all of it in slow motion, the wet heat, the rolling motion of her tongue, even the hum of satisfaction as her hands slid up Evelon’s body. It shouldn’t have taken her by surprise this late in their game. This wasn’t an act the Empress hated to do, perhaps because she knew how Evelon reacted to it and liked having that power over her.

Evelon was already to the point of gasping, her heart fluttering wildly in her chest, her skin humid from the warmth.

“Did you have no one while you were away?” the Empress asked, reading all sorts of flattery into the fact that Evelon had been with no one. In truth, there had never been anyone else, and Evelon didn’t want anyone else. Sometimes, she lied to the Empress and claimed otherwise, particularly when she wanted to punish herself. A stronger person would have found someone else with whom to share their time and spare themselves a sliver of the loneliness inside their chest.

A flare of pain radiated from the inside of her thigh where the Empress pinched her. “Are you listening to me?”

Evelon bit her lip as a warm ache spread through her and kept her moan locked cruelly away. “I am,” she answered, hating the shake in her voice. “I don’t know how to answer.”

The Empress’s nails raked down the top of her thighs, left parallel rows of wheals in her skin. “Answer with the truth.”

Her touch brushed close to Evelon’s center, hands wrapping around her hips to adjust her position, lift her so she was even more exposed. The Empress’s warm breath tickled at her most sensitive spots and she flushed in response, aware that her reaction was extreme, that anyone else might not already be this close to completion. Squirming, she arched forward, head and back braced against the chair.

It would do her little good. She still had to figure out how to accomplish her goal here today. With her mind half-elsewhere, her conscience half-full with guilt and need already, it was difficult to keep herself from crying out, too, wresting this small degree of control back.

Damn the woman before her. Damn her, damn her.

If only Evelon was stronger.

Evelon bit her lip until she felt bruised and tasted iron on her tongue. Her jaw creaked from an old, old injury and she couldn’t withhold her groan any longer. “No. I took no lovers.” _You know this already._

The Empress’s fingertips skimmed lightly over her folds. She was already wet and scorching heat flooded through her at even that small touch. And all the Empress did was elbow her legs further apart, turn that heat into a burn as she stretched and strained. The Empress’s touch feathered over her again and again. She didn’t bother to relay the truth back at Evelon: how sad it was that she could be brought to this with so little effort.

“Good,” the Empress replied, sounding neither pleased nor disappointed despite her words, slipping her thumb across Evelon’s clit. A jolt of pleasure crackled through her body, devastating as lightning. Every stroke of the Empress’s fingers against her pulled her further down and threatened to rip her resolve from her. Something, something here had to give and Evelon was determined it wouldn’t be her.

She’d thought her heart ready for what was to come, but now…

Now Evelon’s awareness was reduced only to the gentle back-and-forth sweep of the Empress’s thumb. The rhythm infuriated Evelon, inflamed her, so close to what she needed, but too far away to get her all the way there. Evelon would start to anticipate the speed, heat building and building inside of her, and then the Empress would change it.

The Empress leaned in and pressed more firmly against Evelon’s clit, drawing a sharp, gasping breath out of her, perhaps out of spite or sheer, unhappy delight at tormenting Evelon.

Slick dampened the space between her legs, warm, vaguely sweet, and she tried not to think about where she was sitting, just what the Empress was demanding of her by putting her here. When she adjusted herself, the Empress merely pushed her back into place. “Don’t move, darling,” she said, and though she spoke sweetly enough, Evelon could hear the threat in her voice.

Evelon had never hated the Empress as much as she did at this moment and she loathed herself even more for the lightning strike of pleasure that rushed through her at the command.

She was rewarded, if it could be called that—Evelon wished it _couldn’t_ be called that—with the slide of the Empress’s fingers into her cunt. They moved easily inside of her, their path smoothed by Evelon’s shame-filled need. If Evelon looked down, she was certain she’d see a smirk on the Empress’s mouth, but all she could do was keep her eyes closed or stare at the ceiling, accept that she wanted this and that it served a greater purpose both.

The Empress continued to speak, offer her thoughts about Evelon’s cunt, her needs, flattered herself that she was, rightly, the only one who could drive Evelon to the brink of this particular despair, this particular ecstasy.

She listened for words that would indicate the Empress expected an answer, but otherwise, she focused solely on the feel of the Empress’s twinned fingers, the brush of her thumb, the cascading pleasures building inside of her again, more slowly this time, uninterrupted by the Empress’s cruel need to tease.

It was for this reason alone, she thought, that it came as such a surprise when the Empress’s mouth replaced her hand, shocked a shriek from deep inside of Evelon, half wild and sobbing as the Empress’s warm, clever tongue pressed against Evelon’s clit, swirled around the swollen nub. Starlight prickled behind Evelon’s eyes and though she tried to control herself, she couldn’t stop from bucking up against the Empress’s lips, her only saving grace being the heavy weight of the Empress’s hands on her thighs, fighting against her movement.

The Empress’s tongue worked precisely, lapped at her center and pushed inside with strong, even thrusts, wandered across her folds as her teeth scraped her sensitive skin, as she picked a spot and sucked, near enough to her clit to send shock waves through her, but not enough to push her over the edge just yet. The Empress knew her body too well and her limits. She was a toy for the Empress to play with and little else, that was what the Empress told her without saying anything at all.

One of the Empress’s hands fell away, freeing her to stretch her leg out should she wish it.

The Empress’s dress rustled faintly and her actions hitched for one brief moment before she herself gasped against Evelon’s skin. Evelon imagined she was touching herself, too, unable to hold back in this smallest of ways and Evelon was pleased at the thought.

Evelon liked to imagine it, anyway, the Empress’s fingers sliding between her folds, pleasure climbing her spine as she focused so deeply on stroking Evelon again and again with her tongue. Just the possibility that the Empress might feel something was intoxicating. It took up residence in her, that thought, and curled in her stomach before stretching wide, yawning, through every inch of her.

Maybe it was just egoism on her part, a selfish, pathetic need for her not to be entirely alone in this.

Just this once, she didn’t want to be alone. And just this once, she would be. Entirely. Even more than usual.

Her thoughts wrapped around and around that fact, spun in so many directions that for one moment, she didn’t even feel it as the Empress’s fingers breached her body again. This time, the stretch burned, forcing her back to the present moment, as though the Empress realized Evelon’s attention had drifted momentarily and that just would not do.

The Empress never had liked it when the people around her strayed, even if only mentally.

Evelon could admit this: the Empress was very good at dragging attention back her way. She felt as though she’d been pushed toward the edge of a cliff, that the Empress held her there, poised for more, and Evelon couldn’t stop her, couldn’t stop herself either.

If only Evelon could tumble over the edge.

But though her body thrummed, though the Empress worked her and worked her close to completion, she couldn’t reach it. The Empress wouldn’t let her. Even if her jaw ached for the rest of the night, she seemed determined only to drive Evelon past the ragged edges of her control.

Her hands clenched and unclenched and her muscles ached as they, too, tensed and relaxed. Sweat prickled her skin, dampened her hair, slid down her face, between her breasts beneath the heavy weight of her uniform jacket.

She was shaking, flying apart at the seams. She would come and she would hate herself for it and she would do what had to be done.

This was always the way of things.

Only this was the end, too. 

The Empress crooked her fingers and swept her tongue over Evelon’s clit one final, cataclysmic time. Evelon’s vision blurred and for a long moment she could do nothing except accept the brutal, unflinching onset of her orgasm. Shudders wracked her body, bowed her spine. Pleasure ripped her to shreds and pleasure reconstituted her and all the while the Empress touched her, working fingers in deep, rolling her tongue more insistently, pushing and pushing her toward a second orgasm.

“Mmm,” the Empress said, rising, leaving Evelon sprawled across the cathedra while she adjusted herself. Her mouth gleamed with the remnants of Evelon’s release. “Exquisite as always. Now that you’ve relaxed a little, shall we follow the usual steps or would you like to try something a little different today?”

“I…” She willed her heart to stop pounding so hard in her chest. She didn’t succeed.

“I tasted poison on your breath, darling,” she said, uninterested in wasting time. Her hand gestured at her own cheek. “I take it you’ve got some kind of capsule installed in your tooth?” When Evelon said nothing, the Empress smiled. It was obvious enough that she was imagining something close to the truth. “You gave up your sword too quickly today. I figured you had to have something else up your sleeve.”

Evelon gritted her teeth together. It was true and she’d spent an agonizing series of months working toward this moment. To have the Empress figure it out so quickly was…

She slumped and gathered what pieces of her dignity she could scrape together, pulled her trousers over her thighs and clasped them shut.

Maybe if she truly believed in the Empress’s course, they would be better off.

And maybe she would just need to try again. As she gathered her equipment, limbs unsteady, she mulled over the thought within the deepest confines of her mind.

“What will you do with me?” Evelon asked. Perhaps the Empress would finally put her out of her misery instead.

“Nothing,” the Empress replied, colder than before. The sweet talk rarely lasted, especially not when Evelon has made yet another attempt. “Your new orders will be waiting for you in your quarters.”

The Empress did so love testing her people’s loyalties. And she loved nothing more than to test Evelon’s specifically, never wearied of Evelon proving that she would do the Empress’s bidding even while she plotted her death.

One day, she decided, she would be strong enough to finally truly disappoint the Empress.


End file.
